Modern inventory systems, such as those in mail-order and e-commerce warehouses, airport luggage systems, and custom-order manufacturing facilities, face significant challenges in providing fast, accurate responses to requests for inventory items. As inventory systems grow, the challenges of simultaneously completing a large number of packing, storing, and other inventory-related tasks become non-trivial. For instance, in product distribution centers (e.g., fulfillment centers), vast quantities of products are processed for shipment to consumers traditionally using manual labor and/or mechanical handling equipment (e.g., conveyor systems, forklifts, etc.). In inventory systems tasked with responding to large numbers of diverse orders, inefficient utilization of system resources, including space, equipment, and manpower may result in lower throughput and a large backlog of inventory requests.
In recent years, automation has improved the speed and efficiency of storing and retrieving inventory items within such systems. Human operators may be involved at various points in the automated inventory systems, for example in transferring identified inventory items to and from inventory storage structures. Various systems can be implemented to facilitate the interactions between the operators and the automated inventory systems, for example providing information to the operators regarding identified inventory items.